My actual next novel is titled The Other Mother, and it will publish in the UK and Australia in June of this year and will publish in the United States sometime in 2020.

In truth, I wrote The Other Mother first, and it was supposed to be my next book published in the United States, too, but then my new editor had the chance to read the first half of Twenty-one Truths About Love, and she and my publisher decided to reverse the order of publication, forcing me to finish Twenty-one Truths About Love early.

If you noticed that I was a little harried last year, now you know why.

But I was thrilled. They were so excited about the book and its potential that they wanted it on store shelves as soon as possible.

So today I’m revealing the cover of The Other Mother, which will grace the UK and Australian editions of the novel. When it finally lands in the United States late next year, the cover will almost assuredly be different.

The name, for example, will definitely be different. My pen name in the UK is Matthew Green after it was determined that my actual last name might offend British sensibilities.

Green is Elysha’s maiden name.

But I like this cover a a lot. I hope you do, too, particularly if you’re living in the UK or Australia.

Not the actual book, which publishes in October, but the cover of my next novel, Twenty-one Truths About Love. This is the first in many baby steps to be taken before the book can finally land on store shelves.

What do you think?

The book is a bit unusual. Unconventional, you might say.

It’s a novel written entirely in lists:_____________________________________

From the beloved author of Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend comes a wonderful new novel about a struggling man, written entirely in lists.

This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances―he wants to become someone.

1. Dan wants to do something special. 2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary. 3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure. 4. Of living in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband.

Dan is also an obsessive list maker, and his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life._____________________________________

In preparation for publication, we’re going to have some contests in which you can contribute to readers’ versions or create your own versions of some of the lists in the book, including the eponymous one.

And if you’re so inclined, preordering the book is ENORMOUSLY helpful to authors. Not only does it increase the book’s chances of landing on bestselling lists, but preorders will increase the initial print run of a book, guaranteeing more copies on bookstore shelves.

As I handed it to the cashier, he turned it over in his hands, examined the cover, and said, “See, this is good. I’m glad they’re writing these books for boys, too. It’s not a boys versus girls thing, but it’s balance that we need.”

The man behind the counter was young and clearly obtuse. Ill informed. I could’ve allowed his comment to go unchallenged, but because I am me, I could not resist.

It also sounded like he was lecturing me, which admittedly annoyed me, too.

So I fired away.

“You’re worried about balance?” I asked. “You really think that I should be worried that my son won’t find characters who represent him in literature? You really think it’s going to be a struggle for my white American son to find authors and heroes and leaders who look like him? I’m happy he’s excited about this book, but if every book for the next ten years was only written about women and by women, the gap between men and women in literature would still be enormous.”

“It’s just that there are a lot of books written for girls today,” he said, sounding sheepish, which was a good sign. At least he understood that the ground he was standing on was flawed.

“Those books aren’t written for girls,” I said with more force than was necessary, but now I was especially annoyed and, if I’m being honest, having some fun. “They’re written about girls, but they are written for everyone. Boys can read about girls, too.”

The man quickly turned his attention to scanning the last couple books. A second later, he announced my total, turning our discussion into a simple transaction.

He was done with me, either because I had snapped at him a bit or because he thought that as a Barnes & Noble employee, this was not the best means of conversation to have with a customer.

If I’m being honest again, I was disappointed. I was preparing to roll out the fact that I’m a teacher of 20 years and the author of four novels and a book of nonfiction as a means of credentialing myself.

Also possibly making myself look like a jackass.

After I paid for the books, I stepped aside and immediately opened my phone so I could record the conversation as best as I could remember it.

I like to be accurate.

Then I told Elysha because I knew that she would share my annoyance.

It’s incredible to think that there are men in this world who are threatened by the prospect that women might find an equal footing in literature or commerce or science or politics or whatever they damn well please.

It’s astounding to me that a man could work in a bookstore, surrounded by books written by white men, and think that books like the Rebel Girls series or an increase in the number of biographies of women or books written by female authors might be creating an imbalance of any kind in the world of books.

Has he not examined the books on the shelves? Does he really think that the scales are about to tip and books about boys are going to disappear forever? Is he that afraid of the idea of sharing space in this world with women?

This encounter was surprising to me, but it shouldn’t be. Frightened little boys in man suits walk amongst us every day, worried that the privilege they have enjoyed for tens of thousands of years might not be as absolute as it once was. These penis-bearing cowards are afraid of world where they will need to compete against women for power and position. They are repulsed by the idea that a bookshelf might someday hold more books written by and about women than men.

This statue of the the classic British children's character Matilda staring down a likeness of President Donald Trump has been erected to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Roald Dahl's 1988 novel.

As the Roald Dahl Story Company prepared to mark the anniversary of the novel, it asked the British public to weigh in on a replacement for Miss Trunchbull, the villainous headmistress. A survey asked who Matilda’s present-day antagonist would be.

Topping the poll by a wide margin was, of course, Donald Trump.

Even in a nation an ocean away, with the likes of Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage from which to choose, the most vile person who immediately comes to the British mind is the same one who Americans despise in historically large numbers.

For the record, Matilda would kick Trump’s ass if given half a chance.

The Turkish edition of The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs has arrived!

It never stops being exciting to see the international editions of my books arrive on my doorstep.

Just this week we sold the Taiwanese rights to my next novel, 16 Truths About Love, which will publish in the fall of 2019. And The Other Mother, which will publish a year after that, will publish first in the UK in the spring of 2019.

Publishing internationally is something I never imagined happening when I published my first novel in 2009. In addition to the excitement of knowing that your story is traveling the world and the financial benefits of publishing a book in two dozen countries, I hear from international readers all the time, often through the magic of Google Translate.

Recently, Mexican teenage girls have been writing to me about my first and third novels, wanting to know what happens next.

It’s a strange, strange world.

I opened the Turkish edition of my book, mostly to see what Turkish looked like, and look what I found. Inside the book, affixed to the binding with a perforated edge, is a bookmark designed to appear like the cover of the book.

How clever.

Also, why don’t we get something like this in the United States? I’m suddenly feeling like our American publishers are letting us down a bit.

I never understood Richard Scarry's Busy Town. I didn't have a lot of children's books growing up, so I missed out on the series for the most part.

But I also made no effort to get my hands on the book for one specific reason:

Even as a kid, I always thought it was stupid when animals in books and movies just did things that regular human beings already did.

Books like the Arthur series were similar.

I would think: You're going to let animals talk and do stuff, and the best you can do is send them to school every day like me? Give them homework? Make them eat dinner at a table with their parents? Why?

I also thought as a kid that Richard Scarry's books were falsely advertised. A guy named Richard Scarry wrote these books, but there not a single scary thing in any of these books. What gives?

However, I recently ran across to updates to Richard Scarry's Busy Town online, and these I can support. I love both, but I really love second one best.

I first wrote about this story back in 2012. It's one of those stories almost too strange to be believed.

It involves two people.

One of them is a woman from Wisconsin named Charity.

The other is a man from Connecticut whose name I will avoid using in order to protect his identity, though I would take great personal pleasure in naming him.

But I will refrain. I'll simply refer to him as Mr. Mensa. You'll see why.

The woman in the story, Charity, is one of my biggest fans. She has read all of my books, reads and comments on my blog and social media regularly, and has written me some of the kindest and most generous emails about my work that I have ever received. She promotes my work to her friends. Even her mother is a fan of my books.

I met Mr. Mensa in the green room of a local television studio a few years ago. I was doing a promotional spot for an upcoming literary festival, and he had recently appeared on a game show and was being interviewed about the experience. He is also a writer. He publishes supernatural detective novels and other things.

After chatting in the green room for a while, we exchanged contact information and became friends on Facebook.

Over the course of the next year or so, he began commenting on my blog posts and status updates with great regularity. His comments were almost always negative. He attacked my positions, criticized my writing, and challenged me at every opportunity. His comments were often biting and sarcastic.

Truthfully, I didn’t mind much. I like to fight. But the consistency of his attacks were admittedly disconcerting. He never let up, no matter what I was writing about. Elysha came to despise him for his constant rants. Friends asked me who this man was and what he had against me. He had quickly become my online nemesis.

Then one day Mr. Mensa went away. Honestly, I never even noticed. I wasn't exactly looking forward to his frequent comments.

Two years later, I received an email from Charity:

From her email:

I met a guy online a few years ago. He was nerdy and Mensa, and I was single and have never minded boyfriends who are 5'6" compared to my 5'10" frame. We got to know each other on Facebook for a year and a half. Sometimes things we were reading in our spare time would come up.

After more than a year of getting to know each other, he flew out here to Madison for a few days for a date weekend. He flew out here from Connecticut.

He saw one of your books on the table and said, "I know this guy."

I said, “Oh, I am obsessed with this guy's stories. My mother discovered his first book at an ALA convention and I cannot get these stories off my mind. I'm into book three, and it's good, but this author has me spinning because I never know what to expect.”

My friend said, “I know this guy. He is a know-it-all, and I hate him and even unfriended him on Facebook.”

I was like, “Oh! I'm sorry to hear it. Please tell me more.”

He said that you thought you knew more than he did. Period.

The weekend did not end well because he spent most of his time playing video games on his phone. I asked him about this and he said there's nothing wrong with this.

His books make no sense to me and are not interesting.

I can't get 40 pages into his books.

He was a rotten date, boring dinner company, and played video games all evening long.

First, what are the odds that these two people, with such divergent connections to me and separated by such great distances, would come together, entirely independent of me?

Slim at best. Right?

But best of all is what Elysha said when I shared the story with her:

“Your biggest fan and your arch nemesis went on a date!”

She’s right. Even though they live about 2,000 miles apart, my biggest fan and my arch nemesis came together for possible romantic entanglement.

I like to think that it was the presence of my book on that table that saved Charity from years of dating misery, but I suspect that even if my name had not come up, she would’ve jettisoned this guy.

It’s an incredibly small world, especially when you write stories that crisscross the globe.

I wrote about that encounter back in 2012. Two years later, in 2014, I had the honor of traveling to Maine on a perfect August weekend to serve as the minister in Charity's wedding to her husband, Brent. I had never met Charity or Brent in person up until that point, but Charity wanted one of her favorite authors - who also happens to be a minister living in New England - to perform her marriage ceremony, and I agreed.

How could I not?

In addition to marrying them on the edge of a beautiful lake, I celebrated their nuptials with food, drink, music, and a late night fire-swallowing demonstration by one of their friends that frightened the hell out of me.

Charity remains in occasional contact with Mr. Mensa today. He reportedly likes to brag about his Mensa status (calling his Mensa status seriously into question), and he presumably still despises me and my work.

But who knows? Had Mr. Mensa appreciated my fiction as much as Charity does, perhaps my biggest fan and my arch nemesis date for a while, and Charity misses her chance at meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Brent.

Maybe Brent meets Scarlet Johansson at a roadside corn stand and they hit it off. Elope. Create beautiful music together.

I hear from a lot of readers and storytelling fans from around the world.

Just this week, readers from Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Columbia, and Ecuador wrote to me about my books an stories.

Add to this folks from Orlando, Seattle, Dallas, and the "mountains of West Virginia."

There was a time in publishing when books held decidedly greater attention and appeal to the American public, as evidenced by these disturbing statistics:

Though I wish the public still treasured books as much as they did 50 or 100 years ago, I take solace in the fact that writers like Hemingway, Dickinson, Baldwin, and Fitzgerald were never able to wake up to an email from a Mexican teenage girl who was dying to know if characters from their first novel ever got married.

This happened yesterday.

Or a Facebook message from a woman in Australia who spent the evening binge-watching my YouTube channel.

That also happened yesterday.

Or the email from Canada who told me that page 181-183 of my new book, Storyworthy, helped her to release an awful burden and perhaps save a friendship.

I received that about a week ago.

Or a photo from a woman in Ecuador who loved their third novel and sent a photo of where that book resides on her shelf.

I received it about a week ago, too.

Yes, I wish more people read books, and I wish more people read my books, but the daily communication I receive from people around the country and the world is pretty amazing.

At a book talk about a week ago, a woman asked me if I'm ever worried that someone might steal my stories and use them for their own purposes. "Your stories are so good," she said. "How do you protect them from someone who might try to tell them as their own? Or write and publish them? Or write a novel based upon your life?"

I was amused by the question. Copyright, I explained, protects me. There is no need to file any official paperwork in order to establish copyright. If I were to write a poem on the inside of a box of cereal, it would immediately be copyrighted. If I stand up before nine people in a bar and tell a story about my life, I'm instantly protected by copyright.

Copyright is a beautiful thing.

Then I added something like this:

Besides, who would be so desperate and pathetic to steal one of the stories? What kind of sick person would pretend that my life was their own? Even if someone wanted to steal one of my stories, I spend a large portion of my life trying to convince people to write. To tell stories. To preserve their own stories and their own voice in some way for future generations. But the vast majority of these people - almost all of them - ignore my warnings, continue to stare at the television, and live lives of eventual, lamentable regret.

People are lazy, I explained. If a person can't take the time to write or tell your own stories, why would they ever find the energy or initiative to tell my stories?

I liked this answer a lot. I thought it was funny and honest and a little pointed. All characteristic that I adore. And it made the audience laugh, hopefully in the way you laugh at things you know are terribly true.

Then I went home and told Elysha about my impressive answer. Waited for her to express as much admiration for my response as I was feeling.

Instead she said this:

"But Matt, someone did steal one of your stories. Don't you remember?"

She was right.

About four years ago, a low life scum of a human being was speaking to two of my friends when he launched into an amusing story about his childhood. My friends listened in horror, quickly realizing that he was telling one of my childhood stories as is own. They allowed him to finish before calling him on it, at which point he attempted a few feeble excuses and slithered away like the worm that he was and still is.

Damn. That lady at RJ Julia Booksellers was right. People steal stories.

Correction: Low life cretins steal stories.

It admittedly takes an especially sad, despicable, and rotten human being to do such a thing - someone who hates their own life so much that they will steal the life of another - but it's a real possibility.

My clever, cavalier answer was nonsense.

My only hope is that the number of low life cretins looking to steal stories is low.

On Saturday night, I took the stage at the release party for Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling, and told five brand new stories to an audience of more than 200 friends and family.

It was quite a night.

My friend, storyteller, and producer Erin Barker once told me never to produce a show and perform in that same show. I've been violating her rule ever since launching Speak Up five years ago, but there have been nights when I fully understood what she meant. Preparing to perform while managing the multitude of problems that can occur in the process of producing a show can be challenging.

So it shouldn't have been surprising that being the only storyteller of the night, telling five BRAND NEW stories in addition to a brief lesson after each story, is extremely difficult and mentally taxing. I've done solo shows before, many times, but never before had I taken the stage with completely new material. Stories Elysha had never even heard before.

It was a lot to hold in my head.

Thankfully, once I stood behind that microphone, everything quieted in my mind and I knew exactly what to do. The stories were there, just waiting for me to begin telling.

Happily, I wasn't the only performer that evening. Andrew Mayo of Should Coulda Woulda opened the show with a reconfiguration of his band consisting of three of my former students (and his children), the parent of a former student, and the siblings of a former student.

They were brilliant. The perfect way to begin the night.

But the highlight of the night came when Elysha took the stage in the second half of the show and played her ukulele and sang in public for the first time.

The story that I told just before she performed was about the months following a brutal armed robbery. I was battling post-traumatic stress disorder at the time but didn't know it. I was clawing my way through life, not sleeping or eating, and oddly not able to pass from one room to another without suffering incredible fear and mortal dread.

Then one night I found myself standing before an iron door at the bottom of a dark stairwell in an abandoned building in Brockton, MA, wondering if I could find the strength to walk through that door to the room on the other side.

I was there to compete in an underground arm wrestling tournament (crazy, I know) with the hopes of winning some money and taking one step closer to paying off a $25,000 legal bill after being arrested for a crime I did not commit.

I found the courage to do the hard thing that night. The impossible thing, really. That was the hardest doorway I've ever walked through in my life. And even though I would continue to suffer from PTSD for the rest of my life, that doorway in the basement of that building has made every doorway since so much easier to step through.

I wanted the audience to understand the value of doing the hard thing. I wanted them to put aside any fears that they might have. I wanted their dreams of someday to be dreams of today. I wanted them to understand that every hard, frightening, seemingly impossible thing that I have done in my life has always yielded the greatest results.

I was terrified about taking the stage for the first time at a Moth StorySLAM in July of 2011 and telling my first story. But doing so changed my life.

So I asked Elysha to perform for the first time that night to show people what the hard, frightening thing looks like. She's only been playing ukulele since February, and she's never sung in public or taken singing lessons. It was hard for her. Frightening. Yet she stepped through that door and was brilliant.

Elysha performed Elvis's "Can't Help Falling in Love," and during the final chorus, the audience joined her in singing. When the song was over, everyone leapt to their feet in the loudest applause of the evening.

I was so proud of her. I still am.

It was a wonderful night for everyone involved. I can't thank everyone enough for the support.

We recorded the evening and will release the audio in two parts as episodes for upcoming Speak Up Storytelling podcasts so that you can hear the stories and the lessons and Elysha and everything else.

One of the many most exciting moments as an author is the moment when the first copy fo your book arrives at your doorstep. This was the fifth time that I experienced such a moment, and I remember each of them with perfectly clarity.

The tearing open of a box. The ripping of a mailing envelope. The nervous excitement as you reach for an object that took years to create.

Behold. My first nonfiction title. I couldn't be more excited.

The forward is written by my hero, author and storyteller Dan Kennedy.

It's dedicated to the founder of The Moth, George Dawes Green, the host of The Moth's podcast, Dan Kennedy, and the storytelling genius and creative guru of The Moth, Catherine Burns.

It was written on the shoulders of Elysha Dicks, who supports everything that I do.

Hidden within the pages is the editorial wisdom of so many of my friends, including Matthew Shepard, David Golder, Jeni Bonaldo, Amy Miller, C. Flanagan Flynn, and others who I am forgetting.

It's filled with the lessons of storytellers who have stood beside me on stages around the world and students who have joined me in workshops to learn the craft of storytelling.

Each one of them has taught me so much and contributed so much to this book.

Now it's real. It's been transformed from idea and thought to a device that is capable of conquering the barriers of time and space.

Think about it:

Ten years from now, in some city in northern China (where we recently sold the foreign rights to the book), a future storyteller will pick up this book and read the words of a writer living half a world away who wrote those words a decade ago.

The time when television, film, video games, and the internet did not steal away eyeballs of potential readers.

Authors like Fitzgerald, Hughes, and Austin had enormous audiences of readers just waiting for their next books, aching for a new story or poem, because reading was one of the primary sources of entertainment in the world.

Today we have to shout and flail just to be noticed above the noise. More than a quarter of Americans report not having read a book within the past year. And more books are published today than ever before.

It ain't easy finding an audience.

But there are some distinct advantages to publishing books in today's world. Yesterday was a fine example:

We exchanged emails throughout the day. She asked me questions about my novels and my writing process, and I asked her about the town where she lived and what she wanted to do for a living when she was finished with school. Despite the fact that we lived on two different continents and spoke two different languages, we connected in a way that would've been impossible just 20 years ago.

I ended my day with an interview via Skype with an Australian-based podcast. The host of the show and I discussed Storyworthy and my storytelling career. Specifically, we talked about the teaching of storytelling, the components of an effective story, the best means of delivering presentations, keynote speeches, and the like.

I was able to engage in a face-to-face conversation with a woman on the other side of the world, and that conversation will be turned into a podcast that can be listened to by anyone in the world.

Remarkable.

But the moment that best illustrates the good fortune I feel about being alive today came in the middle of the day, when I received a Facebook mention from a reader in India.

He wrote:

"Awestruck seeing how the basic human emotions n stories are the same across continents and time zones and developed and developing countries.. one of my favourite author Matthew Dicks feeling the same in America which I sit and feel here in a corner in India.. Nostalgia is universal..."

This says everything.

A reader in India is reading my blog.

A reader in India is reading my books.

I'm the favorite author of a man in India.

Best of all, thanks to the internet, enormous distances, multiple time zones, and countless cultural boundaries are pierced rather easily, bringing two people together in both thought and sentiment in a way that could've never happened before the twenty-first century.

I can't tell you how excited and surprised I was to see this appear on Facebook. Thrilled, even.

Fitzgerald and Hughes and Austin had larger, more attentive audiences for sure. There were far fewer books being published in their day.

But none of them could've connected with readers on three different continents, in two different languages, in a single day. If given the choice, I would absolutely take a larger, more attentive, more voracious audience of readers, but if that can't happen, I'll take days like yesterday and consider myself blessed.

In the past nine years, I've attended hundreds of book clubs to talk about my books. It is by far one of my favorite ways to meet readers, because unlike a book store or library appearance, these folks have already read my book and are prepared to ask some interesting questions.

I've also learned that not all book clubs are alike. I've seen some strange and fascinating things over the years while visiting with book clubs, including:

Game shows - complete with theme music and large, colorful props - designed to test book club members' knowledge of the story

Power point presentations arguing in favor of the next book

Buffets only containing foods mentioned within the book

Skinny dipping (admittedly, that was my own book club, and not me)

End-of-year, Academy Award styled awards shows for favorite books and characters from the previous year (voted on by secret ballot by members of the book club)

Heated arguments (and one woman storming out of the house) over disagreements about themes and plot points, (even though the author was there to definitively answer the question)

I've attended book clubs in living rooms, restaurants, backyards, libraries, community centers, and churches. I've joined book clubs via Skype with people from all over the country and the world. I once spoke with a group of Saudi Arabian women wearing head scarves that covered everything but their eyes.

Twice I've attended a book club hosted on a boat.

Perhaps the strangest book club I ever visited was one who I joined while driving through the Bronx. Elysha and I were on the way to a Moth StorySLAM and planned to arrive early so I could join the group via Skype on my phone to answer a few questions before the show. Traffic slowed us, so the call from the book club came as I drove through the Bronx to the show.

Elysha pointed the camera at me, and as I navigated my way through the streets, I answered questions about Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. The group even asked Elysha some questions about being married to an author.

We spoke for about 15 minutes. In that time, I found the theater, parallel parked, and wrapped up the call in the car while Elysha went to get a spot in line.

I've often thought about writing a book about my wide and varied experiences with book clubs: both my own book club and the ones I've visited. It wouldn't be a terribly long or especially profound book, but that might make it the perfect book for book clubs everywhere.

It's written for everyone, because over the past four years, I've discovered that everyone can utilize storytelling to their advantage.

People who want to perform at The Moth or a similarly styled storytelling show

Salespeople who want to connect with their customers

Presenters who want to connect and engage audiences

Ministers, priests and rabbis

Teachers, professors, and therapists

Yoga instructors, cooking instructors, and camp counselors

TV, radio, and podcast personalities

Attorneys

College and job Interviewees

Real estate agents

Nonprofit leaders and professional fundraisers

Politicians and activists

Archivists, museum docents, and curators

Grandparents who want their grandchildren to listen to them

People looking to get beyond the first date

Folks looking to make new friends or simply become more interesting

All of these people and more have taken my workshops to learn to tell a better story

A woman once attended a workshop because she wanted to make friends at work but couldn't seem to get anyone's attention. "I will never stand on a stage and tell a story. I just want to tell a better story at the cafeteria table."

Not only did storytelling help her make friends at work, but she went on to perform in our storytelling show and now tells stories as part of her job.

I've written this book for everyone. No matter who you are or what you do, storytelling can help you.

A few testimonials:

"I laughed, gasped, took notes, and carried this book around like a dear friend—because that's exactly what a Storyworthy book should be. As a novelist, I've studied my craft in countless ways, but never before have I seen its marrow revealed with such honest, approachable charisma. Matthew Dicks has written a perceptive companion for every person who has a story to tell—and don't we all?" — SARAH McCOY, New York Times and international bestselling author of Marilla of Green Gables and The Baker's Daughter

“Matthew Dicks is dazzling as a storyteller and equally brilliant in his ability to deconstruct this skill and make it accessible for others.” ― David A. Ross, MD, PhD, program director, Yale Psychiatry Residency Training Program

"Offers countless tips, exercises, and examples to get you on your way to better stories. Anyone who wants to take the stage, become a better writer, or simply tell better stories at Thanksgiving, will benefit from Storyworthy.” ― Jeff Vibes, filmmaker

See? Seemingly intelligent, presumably real people endorse the book. If they like it, you will, too.

And now... how can you help:

1. Preorder the book. Preorders help to determine the size of the first printing and increase my chances of getting noticed right out of the gate. The book is currently available for about $10 via preorder. Please consider purchasing now and having it arrive on your doorstep in June. Buy a bushel, in fact. Give it as a gift. A graduation present. An awkward, unexpected projectile. I've been told that every time you preorder the book, an angel gets its wings. I don't know if that's true, but let's find out.

You can preorder on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at your favorite indie bookstore. You can use these links below:

2. Tell your friends, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbors, and enemies about the book. Ask them to preorder. Share the links on social media. If you know of someone whose company or school or university might be interested in the book, pass on this information. Any and all buzz would be appreciated.

Thanks so very much for your support. It means the world to me. Truly. Every writer needs readers and every storyteller needs an audience.

I've been a member of a book club for more than a decade. Six people - three couples - meet and talk about books over dinner 6-8 times per year.

I've also visited with well over 100 book clubs over the course of my publishing career. It's been interesting. I've learned that book clubs are as diverse as the books themselves.

I've seen some crazy things.

I love my book club, and I love visiting with book clubs. That said, I'm not a fan of this PopSugar list.

I didn't like the list right from the start because it has ten items. When it comes to list, I never trust round numbers, and ten is the worst round number of all. A list of ten items almost always means that that effort was made to bring the list to this round number, so it's likely that a less-than ideal item was added to the list to bring it to ten or a useful item was left off the list to reduce it to ten.

Why magazine editors like this number so much is beyond me.

Would "Want to Have a Successful Book Club? Here Are 9 Tips" been so bad?

I also strongly oppose some of the ideas on the list. The most egregious:

1. Don't do it with your best friends.

While I appreciate the idea that diversity in a book club can offer a variety of perspectives, a book club is supposed to be fun. If I can't hang out with my closest friends and talk about books, that's probably not going to be fun.

3. Send out advance questions and pass them out at the book club.

This sounds like an excellent way to turn reading into work, the equivalent of a teacher assigning a book report. Can you imagine being handed a list of questions prior to your book club meeting?

I can't.

If this happened to me, I think I'd find myself trapped between the desire to tear up the list in the person's face or fold it into a paper airplane and throw it at the person's eyeball.

Don't make a book club more than what it's supposed to be: A conversation about the book.

4. Do it at work.

I hate this advice. It presumes that most American workplaces offer employees control over their time and space. It's simply not true. Millions of Americans are working in factories, retail establishments, the service industry, and for the government, not to mention the enormous numbers of people who are unemployed, retired, or opting out of the workforce. For a majority of Americans, conducting a book club at work would be impossible.

Do you want your local DMV worker using taxpayer money to discuss the intricacies of the latest Jonathan Franzen novel?

Do you really think the sales rep at Best Buy or the waiter at Applebees or the mechanic at Pep Boys is going to be afforded the time to gather with fellow employees in the break room to debate the portrayal of racism in Huckleberry Finn?

Do you really think that your hairdresser or furnace technician will be gathering at the end of the day to discuss the brilliance of the latest Matthew Dicks novel?

This is advice for the precious few whose boss might think it lovely for employees to gather and discuss literature or who have the opportunity to take a long lunch simultaneously.

This just doesn't happen for most people.

Also, alcohol always makes book club better. Can't drink at work.

9. Have a cell-phone bowl (like a key party).

No, this is not like a key party at all. A key party is a strategy used by swingers to determine their sexual partners for the evening. Keys are randomly selected from a bowl, and the key you choose corresponds to the person who you will be having sex with later that night.

This sounds like an exciting new model for a book club, but I don't think it's what Elyssa Friedland meant when she proposed collecting phones at the beginning of the meeting.

This is a proposal to treat adults like children, which never sits well with me. If your book club is populated by adults, and one of them is staring at his phone all night, say something. Ask him to stop. Un-invite him from the book club. Don't impose rules that stop adults from being adults.

All that said, I like a few of Friedland's ideas a lot.

2. Rotate who chooses the book (a policy my book club uses).5. Call the writer (I'm often called and asked to visit).8. Give ample time between sessions.10. Venture into nonfiction.

These are all good ideas. Reasonable and doable ideas.

Friedland says that book clubs sound amazing in theory but in practice tend to fall short. She gives the average book club about three meetings before the deterioration begins.

This has not been my experience. My book club has not wavered in the slightest, and the book clubs that I visit are enthusiastic, tightly-knit groups of mostly women who love reading and discussing literature.

I'm working like hell to wrap up my first middle grade novel. It should be done in a day or two.

I'm excited about the idea of writing a book aimed at the students I teach. Although Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend and The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs crossed over into the YA market, this book is actually written with kids in mind.

It's a highly autobiographical novel entitled Cardboard Knight.

It's also a month late, which is not like me, but things got a little crazy at the end of 2018. Many books required attention all at once:

Elysha met a person who read my first novel, Something Missing, and refuses to read any more of my books because after reading the first, she is worried that I'm a nefarious person.

I wrote a novel about a burglar who breaks into home and only steals items that wouldn't be noticed missing (and ultimately becomes a guardian angel to these homeowners), and in response to this work of fiction, this individual, who knows me and once respected me deeply as an educator, is now concerned that I am a man with criminal inclinations and a devious mind.

I had two thoughts:

That person is crazy.

Damn. Do other people read that book and reach the same conclusion? Do people think I'm a bad guy because I wrote about a professional criminal (beyond the people who thought I was a bad guy long before reading Something Missing, of course)?

A person is crazy only until everyone else agrees with their particular brand of crazy.

And if this is the case, what other conclusions are people drawing from my books?

Also, my next novel is not going to sit well with crazy people like this, either.

These are stories in which protagonists who look decidedly different from their counterparts ultimately accept their oddities and differences, and in doing so, force the world embrace and celebrate their oddities and differences as well. These are stories in which differences are honored. Diversity proves to be essential.

At first blush, you might think that The Ugly Duckling is a similar story, but no. It's not even close.

The Ugly Duckling is actually a story about conformity, a process that I very much despise. In the end of the story, the ugly duckling transforms into a beautiful swan, thus unburdening itself of its oddities and differences through a blending in with those around him.

The duckling finds acceptance from its peers through that awful and pervasive process of conformity.

There are no celebrations of differences here. No glorious victory of the strange over the common. No big-eared, red-nosed act of heroism. Just a duckling-turned-swan who finds happiness by emulating others, and through no real effort of his own.

The message is clear: The solution to your problems, children, is to find a way to look like everyone else. Find a way to appear conventionally beautiful and your troubles will be over.

I found this utterly depressing. This classic children’s tale is nothing more than a treatise on the importance of conformity. Acceptance through imitation. The stripping of individuality in favor of submission to the collective.

It's a disgusting book. Truly.

I don't believe in the banning of any books, but if I were forced to ban a book from school libraries, it might be The Ugly Duckling. The duckling may be ugly, but the story itself is far uglier.